


Infinity - For Now

by witchymarvelspacecase



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 05:15:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14784227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchymarvelspacecase/pseuds/witchymarvelspacecase
Summary: Thanos has killed half the universe, and the man you love. Can you bring them back?





	Infinity - For Now

The last echoes of Thanos’ snap could still be heard when the ashes stopped falling. Looking around counting more absences than your heart could take, you felt your legs give out.

No one noticed you falling to your knees.

They were all in varying amounts of shock and denial, having seen a number of their loved ones turned to dust before their eyes. 

Too many…  _ Half the universe _ … When you’d been with the Asgardians on their ship, you’d thought you’d seen enough death to last your lifetime, but Thanos kept handing you more. All except you, Thor, and Bruce had been killed. Loki had tried to stop him, had given his life in the attempt. You hadn’t thought your heart could hurt anymore than it did when his body fell. When the ship had disintegrated, you’d hoped that you’d follow him to wherever your souls would go in death, but somehow, you’d survived. On the Guardian’s ship, you and Thor had sworn to avenge all the Asgardians. You swore to Loki’s spirit that you’d avenge him, and see him soon.

But the death hadn’t stopped at the Asgardians. 

_ “It isn’t just here. Not just our planet…” _ thoughts began to form in your brain, barely coherent, but becoming clearer.  _ “There has to be a way…” _

_ The time stone. _

You’d met Dr. Steven Strange only once, and it had been fairly brief. But you knew about the time stone, knew it’s power. If you could get to it, theoretically, you could reverse all of this. All of this death. You just needed the stone. 

And you may be the only one who could get to it. No other Avenger could do what you could. You were the only one who could teleport. And if Dr. Strange was gone, you were the only one who could figure out how to use the stone. 

You had a second talent, one that you generally avoided using. Psychometry. In general terms, you would get feelings, and sometimes images of the past by touching an object. The older or more precious the object had been to someone, the stronger the feeling or vision. If an object had been involved in a particularly strong emotional event, be it joyous or traumatic, that would also increase the strength of your reaction. Your psychometry wasn’t always the best “gift”, but if it could bring back half the universe, you’d never complain about getting weird memories from touching objects ever again. The time stone was old. As old as the universe if the stories were right, you were willing to bet that you could pick up some instructions on how to use it.

A vague, half-plan formed in your head, you pushed yourself to stand. Carefully, you made your way to the last spot Thanos had been. Thor’s new weapon, a giant battle axe, was still there. You reached for it, but as you’d suspected, it was far too heavy for you to lift. 

You turned to take one (possibly last) look at what remained of your family. Natasha caught your eye, but when you thought she’d try to stop you, she simply gave you a solemn nod. She understood. She would explain to the others if she had to.

That was the last you saw of her. You gripped the fading trace of Thanos’ space jump, and followed his trail.

…

You weren’t sure where you’d expected Thanos to be after his murder spree, but it sure as fuck hadn’t been a small cabin in the middle of a field of flowers. It was a small, modest house. It would have been comfortable, tranquil even, had it not been for the huge, purple murderer sitting on the back porch. Thanos had chosen to come to this place after accomplishing his goal because it was comfortable to him. He felt secure there. So secure that he’d removed the gauntlet and left it on a table in the house when he stepped outside. That was as vulnerable as he was ever going to get.

As hard as the fights against him had been, the gauntlet was shockingly easy to get. You had been sure that Thanos would sense your presence somehow, that he would feel you arriving and that he’d fight you off, likely kill you. But he hadn’t. Either he hadn’t noticed you arrive, or he hadn’t classified you as a threat, but whatever the reason, he didn’t even turn to acknowledge you. It was a struggle not to try and attack him, to attempt to  _ kill _ him then and there. It would have been satisfying if it had worked, but you knew the chances were slim, and your primary goal was to get the gauntlet, so you stopped yourself at that. 

Soundlessly as you could, you crept to the table that the gauntlet was resting on. In a normal home, that table would have held maybe a bowl for keys or something, it was almost ridiculous to see the gauntlet on that tiny table. 

Quickly, you grabbed it. As soon as your fingers closed around it, you teleported yourself to the only “safe” place you could think of: the Avengers compound. You teleported right into Tony’s lab.

You’d almost expected Tony to be there, like he always was. It took a moment for you to remember why he wasn’t. He was likely ashes too.

The building that you’d come to call home, that you’d been so used to seeing full of life and sound, was silent. It felt like a tomb.

“Hello, Miss,” FRIDAY called. For some reason, you hadn’t expected FRIDAY to still be there. But with her here…

“FRIDAY, can you tell me who of the family is still... alive?”

“Some, Miss. I had contact with both Mr. Stark and Mr. Parker until they boarded the spaceship. I am unaware of their current state. I can confirm that Mr. Barton is alive, as well as Mr. Lang. Ms. Romanoff, Captain Rogers, Dr. Banner, and Colonel Rhodes are also alive.” It was hard to miss all the names she didn’t mention. 

“Thor was also alive when I left,” you added. FRIDAY did not respond, but you knew she added the information. 

You sat down at Tony’s chair, setting the gauntlet in front of you on his lab table. 

Your psychometry was passive, you had to engage it in order to  _ see _ anything from any object, good thing or else you’d probably have gone completely nuts over the years. Just the few years as a kid when you couldn’t control it were insane. Thor had found you after his first trip to Earth, and though he’d been on the outs with Loki at the time, he knew that Loki could help you. So Thor had taken you to Asgard to learn from him. That was how you’d met. 

Loki quickly became an important figure in your life, he taught you to control your psychometry and your teleportation, and he made you feel less like a freakshow. Oddly enough, he evened you out, and you got the feeling that you did the same for him. At least Thor had told you that you did. You wanted to cry. You missed Loki so much. It had crushed you seeing him die. So as much as the idea of touching the gauntlet, of seeing Thanos’ memories of killing everyone filled you with intense dread, you knew that you  _ would _ touch it. To see Loki, and the rest of your family again, you would.

Reaching out with your psychometry was a bit like reaching out with a mental hand overlaid on top of your physical one. As you engaged it, your vision altered, turning black and white. The gauntlet was a pulsing white to you now, it was loaded with magic, and powerful memories. Your mental and physical hands shook as they reached out to touch it. As your skin brushed the cool metal, images flooded your head; everywhere Thanos had been, all the lives he’d ended. 

And… as you looked at the gauntlet, the soul stone pulsed. It looked like it held more memories than anything else. 

_ “Odd,”  _ you thought as you slipped your hand inside the gauntlet.

Had you not been so focused on the odd pulsing of the soul stone, had you been thinking more clearly, you wouldn’t have put your hand in the gauntlet. But it was like you were transfixed by the soul stone, like it had somehow hypnotized you. So you slipped your hand inside.

Tears sprang to your eyes as the gauntlet began to glow, so brightly it was as if the flashes of a thousand cameras were going off at once. It also began to heat up. It felt as though you’d stuck your hand inside a toaster. Just as the pain and light became unbearable, they stopped. In a matter to moments, the gauntlet became inert once again. Looking down at your left hand, you gasped. The gauntlet had shrunk, and now fit your hand perfectly, though the stones didn’t seem to have changed at all. 

As you blinked the tears from your eyes, the soul stone continued to pulse strangely. You brushed the fingers of your right hand over it, and sucked in a breath… you could hear voices. Not just any voices either. Bucky’s voice. Sam’s. T’challa’s. Wanda’s. Members of your family who you’d seen turn to ash in front of your eyes, their voices came from the inside of the stone.

Eyes widening in realization, you teleported back to Wakanda. Right back to where Thor’s battle axe had been.

The eyes of everyone shot to you as you materialized. They had barely moved, Thor’s axe was in the place it had dropped upon Thanos’ disappearance.

Thor shouted an oath as soon as he saw you. He began sprinting towards you, the others of your family right behind him. Cap overtook Thor, and was almost on you in a moment, but before he could reach you, you lifted your left hand, still in the gauntlet, and slammed the soul stone down on the point of the axe.

A massive blast wave shook the ground, and people were launched backwards, but you remained in place, as if in the eye of the storm. You closed your eyes, counted to ten, and when you opened them again, the world was still. Shimmering shapes began forming, slowly coalescing into human forms. Within a few minutes, people who’d been ashes a little while ago, were taking huge gulps of air as if they’d been holding their breath. Each person appeared right where they’d disappeared originally, disoriented but otherwise unharmed. 

Cheers erupted all around, but you weren’t done. You raised the gauntlet again, this time smashing the mind stone. Turning to the spot you knew had been the last place Vision had been, you took hold of the time stone’s power.  You were using the images and feelings you’d gained from you gift, so you were basically guessing on how the stone worked, but it  _ was _ working.  Slowly winding time back, Vision reappeared as Wanda reformed. They both took gasping breaths, looked to each other, then at you. You held up the gauntlet and shrugged.

Thor looked to you in shock as hundreds of thousands of people reappeared. You gave him a smile, before teleporting away again. He hadn’t looked too reassured, but you’d forgive him for that; you weren’t sure what the fuck was going on either.

With the soul gem smashed, all of the people that Thanos had snapped to death were back, but what about those he killed in a different way? Their souls weren’t in the stone, so you’d have to bring them back another way. You’d have to bring  _ Loki _ back another way. Your original plan had been the time stone, you saw no reason not to try that now.

So you jumped to the last place Thanos had been before Wakanda. 

...

“Tony?! Parker?!” you said, shocked as you stepped onto the foreign planet. You also spotted a few of the Guardians who you’d met earlier, and Dr. Strange. Tony and Peter saw you, and even though they both looked a moment away from collapsing, they ran to you.

“How did you get here? What are you doing here?” Peter asked as he ran up to you. Two sets of arms wrapped around you.

“Why is the golden glove of death on your hand?!” Tony nearly yelled.

“It’s a long story, but I’m reversing what Thanos did.” You explained that you’d smashed the soul stone, and Tony kissed your temple as he, and a blue woman named Nebula, explained that most of the people you now saw on the planet around you, had been in the gem.

“And what are you doing now?” Dr. Strange asked, he seemed wary. He knew you, but he also knew the power of the stones; obviously he didn’t trust the gauntlet.

“I have a few more people to bring back, and then I’m getting rid of this thing,” you said, raising your gauntleted hand. “I’m gonna be using the time stone. You can help, or you can get left behind.” His face soured. You’d known that Strange wouldn’t like the idea of anyone but him using the stone, but faced with the other option of being left behind, he would come with you.

He gave you the  _ cliff notes _ version of how to use the stone, which hadn’t been  _ too _ far off from what you’d done in Wakanda. After dropping everyone off in Wakanda with the rest of the Avengers and the Guardians, you jumped to the next place Thanos had stopped. From the top of a very steep cliff, you could see Gamora, laying dead at the bottom of a ravine. 

Doing as Stephen had said, you wound time backwards, facing only where Gamora had been before she’d fallen so you only affected time in that spot, and didn’t bring Thanos back as well. Thanos appearing there, and thus being in two places at once, would have had potentially catastrophic effects on the time everywhere else in the universe.

Sweat beaded on your forehead, but you managed to bring her back. As soon as her feet were both back on the ground, you released your focus on the stone. Bending at the waist you propped your hands on your slightly bent knees and took huge, gulping breaths of air.

“What just happened?” Gamora asked. 

“Short version? Thanos killed you, got all the stones, and killed half of the universe. I stole the gauntlet, smashed the soul stone and brought most people back. Now that you’re back, I’ve only got one more stop to make.”

Gamora looked like she had more questions, but she held them in. You held out your right hand, and she looked at it, then at you. 

“I can teleport. I’m gonna take you Earth. That’s where the rest of our friends are. Nebula and Quill seemed pretty anxious to see you.” Gamora grabbed your hand in a death grip not even a millisecond later.

Upon landing in Wakanda, you paused. Your next stop was where the Asgardian ship had been. The Asgardians had been killed in the middle of space… there would be no oxygen supply.

“Anyone got a spacesuit handy?” you called loudly. There were more than a few geniuses and aliens around, someone must have  _ something _ .

“I have something that should work,” the voice came from over by T’challa, but it was female. Stepping closer, you saw a small holographic image of his sister, Shuri.

“I’d appreciate it if I could borrow it for a bit.” T’challa looked at you with an odd expression, but nodded anyway.

“What are you planning?” Thor asked. He stood just behind you.

“I have a few more people to bring back, Thor. But last I checked, I can’t breathe in space.”

His face lit up, as understanding dawned. “May I accompany you?”

Your teleportation powers were being severely taxed, but you nodded. He needed to see his people, and they would need to see him as well.

Shuri soon appeared, running towards you with a bundle in her arms. Her explanation made the suit seem easy to use, but you knew that an incredible amount of intelligence had gone into its design. Slipping it on and sealing the airtight helmet, you took Thor’s hand and jumped to the location that once held the Asgardian ship.

...

That last time manipulation had taken the most work. You had to bring the ship back first, then Loki, then Heimdall, and then the rest of the people almost one at a time, so that you didn’t bring Thanos back to the ship. By the time the last child breathed again, you collapsed on the ground, utterly unconscious.

…

“Wake up, beautiful,” crooned a voice you’d thought you’d never hear again. Forcing your eyes open, you turned your head slowly, and your eyes met his.

“Loki,” your voice was scratchy, and wavered slightly.

“You do like to make an entrance don’t you?” he laughed lightly, reaching out to cup your cheek. You leaned into the cool pressure of his hand, tears pricking at the corner of your eyes.

“Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.”

“You definitely did ‘right’,” Thor said, he stood a little ways away, close enough to hear you, but not so close as to intrude on Loki’s time with you. You smiled.

“Now, we just gotta destroy this shit,” you looked at your left hand which was still encased in the gauntlet.

“Allow me,” Thor bowed playfully before brandishing his axe with a smile on his face. 

“Perfect, just let me rest a bit, and I know just the place to do the smashing.”

“Of course you do, darling.” You smiled at Loki’s tone. You sat up, slowly and reached for him. He moved to sit behind you, pulling your back to his chest and wrapping his arms around you, allowing you to lean back into him and rest your head on his shoulder. 

...

After a few hours, a plan was made. You, Thor and Loki would jump to Titan. That was the place you’d picked to destroy the gauntlet. You thought it was poetic. 

“He killed so much of what mattered to me. I want to use the weapon  _ he  _ created to destroy what was his home.”

“Vengeful,” Loki muttered as he pressed his lips to your hair. He was stood behind you, his hands on your hips.

“Like it bothers you,” you said, raising an eyebrow and tilting your head back to lean into his chest. He laughed.

“Are you able to teleport us there? You’ve used a great deal of your powers already today,” Thor asked. Loki’s fingers dug a little into your skin. He’d apparently come back to himself just in time to see you collapse, and his reaction was rather violent according to what Thor had told you. 

“It wasn’t like I had much of a choice,” you said as a reminder to both of them. Thor nodded, and Loki’s grip eased. “Besides, I know my limits. It will take me probably a few more hours before I can take that big of a jump with passengers.”

“Perhaps,” Heimdal added, as he appeared from behind Thor, “I may have a different solution.” Thor beamed at the man and clapped a hand on his shoulder. 

…

The bifrost was a rather different experience than your teleportation. One that you would hopefully not have to endure again. Thor and Loki both swore that had they known the trip would have caused you discomfort they would have found a different way to travel. “Discomfort” was a polite way of saying  that you’d thrown up… a lot upon arriving on Titan, and had you any food left in your body after that, you would have thrown up again upon arriving in Wakanda. As it was, you dry heaved.

Wakanda was a giant party by the time you returned, but the people you cared about hadn’t moved too far from where you’d left them. Your family had waited for you.

They didn’t even seem to mind Loki’s presence. Loki had been more than a little nervous about his reception from the other Avengers, but though it was likely to change when the adrenaline and endorphins wore off, he was welcomed.

By the time everyone was ready to sleep, you were practically dead on your feet. You hadn’t wanted to let a minute go by without being around your family. No one seemed to want to separate, like if they slept, it would all have been a dream, and their loved ones would be dead again when they woke up. But it was real. You knew because you were  _ exhausted. _

So exhausted that when Loki had picked you up, you had all but fallen asleep then and there. You struggled a bit, peeking over his shoulder at the others as Loki began to walk away. He was headed to the room T’Challa had been kind enough to offer you, but you wanted to stay with the others still.

“Be still, my love. They will still be here when you awaken again,” Loki’s voice was soft, but admonishing. He worried that you would tax yourself too much. You relented, relaxing in his arms and resting your cheek on his shoulder. “Good girl.”

You drifted out, and back in again just as Loki set you on the bed. You loosely grasped his wrist and tugged him towards you when he would have moved away. He smiled, sighed, and gently lay down beside you. An answering, tired smile spread across your lips as you turned toward him and buried your face in his chest.

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around you, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “Rest now. I will be here when you wake. I promise.”

Surrounded by him, his scent, his voice, you finally drifted back to sleep. Everything was going to be okay, at least for now.


End file.
